Crystal River current., 1887-04-23
sRowNlNe's NEW POEMS.

~9 NSA0Uo' u r1uc opportunity
for Profound Study.
.Hence, get-ye homeward. ye great
and renowned ones, nights children
unchilded, with kindly attendancs"-
so. in English. run the words wherein
Eschylus takes farewell of the Eumen-
ides. Mr.. Browning Fates-C Clotho.
Lachesis. and Atropos-bid us good-by
In his new poem thus:
Clotho Bah!
Lachesis- Tra-la-la!
Atropos: Ha, ha, hal
1t is true that words of Apolo's in
terrupt these laconic greetings, and yet.
looking ut the printed page, one feels
inclined to ask. Is this poetry, or an
extra ct from some classical extravan-
za at the Savoy theater? Romanticism
is indeed triumphant. Perrault and
Hugo have triumphed over Boileau,
and Ar stole, and Eschylus, when q
justly famous English poet can take
those liberties with the Fates. Even in
the days of Theophile, of the famboy-
ant waistcoat, it may be doubted
whether the widest of the generation
would have made Clotho. Lachcsis.
and Atropos drink the wine of mortals
till they said "bah'', ''tra-la-la," and
''Ha. ha. ha" to god" ''Say boo to
you. pooh-pooh to you is within meas
urable distance of this familiarity. Mr..
Brownings new volume, in which
these and other singularities occur. is
styled "Parleving with certain people,"
tunate return, to the form of art in
which MIR. Browning wrought his best,
his immortal poems, the poems of Men
and Women" and '.Bramatis, Per-
sone." The prologue between Apollo
and tho Fates is headed with referen-
ces to texts in the Homcric hymn to
Hermes. in the .'Eumen;des," and in
"Alcestis." Apollo held dialogue on
the value of mortal life, and especially
on the life of Admetus. Tor whom AL
cestis died with the Fates. The ideas
of the poem are interesting, and cast
their light on the foundations of
things. 1t is too late to presume to
argue with Mr.. Browning on his meth
DDS. Lord Tennyson in youth altered
many of his poetic ways, as age brought
the philosophic mind. and the philo-
sophie mind, as it CHANGED. rejected
most of the things which criticism had
censure,l. But Mr.. Browning has ever
taken his own way. The classical taste
of the mere perruque (with which we
confess sympathy might deferen-
tally demur to speech like this.
which Mr.. Browning assigns to Lache-
Sis
Woe-purpled, weal-prankt-if it speed, II 1T
Llfe'ssubstance and show are determined by
WHO, meeting out, mixing, with sure thumb
and finger.
Lead look the due length; is all smoothness
All tangle and griefs take the lot, my decree
The speech, difficult even with the
context, sufficiently displays the causes
Of MIR. Browning's obscurity, discovers
in his style those tenebriferous stars"
by which Paracelsus is said to have OK
planned the phenomena of night.
Strange stars rayed out darkness, Par
acelsus dreamed. here be the similar
consultations Tor few of them) that
make Mr. Browing's poetry obscure TO
the multitude. First come odd words;
''Shun an unusual word like hidden
reef is said to have been the maxim of
no less critic than Caius julius Cesar.
Now, ''purpled. in the first line. is
very unusual word. Speaking from
memory alone we remember no moro
familiar use of it than that of Mallory
in the Mort d. Arthur" king Ryahce
would purple his mantle with twelve
kings beads" One can fancy the we'll
meaning student of poetry looking out
purple" in his Eng ish dictionary. and
practice Of that sort is chilling work.
.'Wealprankt" is not SO difficult.
Doubtless the poet uses these archa-
isms and these clashing consonants
purposoly. to indicate the archaic char
acter of the venerable Fates and the
harshness of their dispositions. In the
same stanza the words ''lead lock the
due length entirely battle us. We
have tried ':lead" and clock" both as
substantives and verbs, but unless they
are employed in some technical sense
we fail to get any meaning out of them.
This may be mere dullness of appre-
hension. but other English poets yield
up their treasures of their sense more
easily. The next stanza. intelligible
enough. causes, like most of Chap
'.Endymion" an uncomfortable feeling.
as if rhyme had suggested the express
sion. rather than that the expression
subdued to itself the thyme.
The Fates, whose business it is to as
sign our mortal thread, weave it and
cut it short, as we
Moirai who dangled
The puppet grotesquely till earth's solid floor
Proved film he fell through, lost in nought as
before.
In too much of Mr.. Browning's poe
try. as here, he seems to forget that
legends recorded by Pausanias, which
made Aphrodite the eldest of the Fates,
Of the Moirai, as he calls them. Thus
did Greece make beautiful, with the
grace Of Aphrodite, even fateful doings;'
but there is little of her charm in these
words of Mr.. Browning's. Surely it is
heresy to divorce loveliness and
charm from poetry; to make "triumph'
rhyme to ION high-umph!" and ''im-
pulse" to "wine ere it reach brain
must brim pulse" Would any mortal
man talk of brimming pulse. except